Madonnna - Hard Candy Review

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The Queen of Pop abdicates her throne to current hitmakers instead of charting new territory.

By Todd Gilchrist

Several months ago when I reviewed the spectacular new Kylie Minogue album X, I suggested that Minogue was "the new Madonna" - a chameleonic pop singer with an indefatigable ability to transform herself and her music into new, exciting and best of all innovative forms. I probably should have qualified that thought a little better - Minogue has been around almost as long as Madonna, and is a superstar in pretty much every country in the world except America - but essentially what I meant is that Minogue has aged gracefully (if not practically in reverse) into a Pop Queen who has as much energy and creativity now as she did when she was singing "Locomotion" two decades ago.

Truthfully, I fully expected to eat my words when Madonna announced that she would be putting out a new record in 2008 to be produced by no less than the Neptunes, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. But Hard Candy, Madonna's final album under contract for Warner Brothers, is an all-around disappointing affair, precisely because the onetime pop-trend forerunner (if not outright originator) seems to have acquiesced to the boundaries of the commercial market she helped establish.

Like a trailer that gives too much away, Madonna's "4 Minutes" is a first single that encapsulates the absolute best of what Hard Candy could be, but leaves nothing else for listeners to discover when exploring the rest of the record. Sparring lyrically with Timberlake over one of Timbaland's best beats since Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous," Madonna proves that she still has more than enough charisma to take on her younger pop counterparts, and offers what will likely become one of the great dancefloor fillers of the summer. Unfortunately, this high point is seldom if ever reached again, as Pharrell, Timbaland and co. otherwise offer Madonna tracks that would have been best left off of Furtado's already lackluster Loose, and quite frankly position the trailblazing singer in the position of trend follower rather than -setter.

I haven't been able to decide whether it's a matter of ubiquitousness or just creative inconsistency, but both Timbaland and the Neptunes have been all over the map in recent years with their production work; for every radio or club banger they produce, there are dozens more that are mediocre, repetitive or just plain forgettable. The problem, it seems, is that the old-fashioned concept of composing music and lyrics together is just no longer in vogue, so to speak; beats are mass-produced by folks like Pharrell and Timabaland over their lunch breaks and in between workouts, and then sold to the highest bidder as the flourish that will sell a singer or songwriter's insipid, nonsensical verses. Their music is all hooks, and no melodies, which means that unless you have a truly gifted performer, or maybe just a presence as big as Madonna's, the artist is invariably swallowed by their signature sounds.

For the most part, Madonna does indeed maintain her spot atop this power pyramid on Hard Candy, but the sad fact is that overall she's never had this little of an identity on any of her albums, and seems to be trying to play catch-up with trends that peaked years ago. Even Britney Spears had the good sense to enlist Pharrell when he was at his hottest; Madonna is now chasing the people whom she inspired, and imitating people who have essentially succeeded by offering the Forever 21 equivalent of her classically Gaulthier-designed fetishism.